I normally wouldn’t write in this vein, being more inclined to scientific research than mysticism, but I have Native American roots, and the appearance of the Holmes comet – which has recently expanded to fill an area greater than our sun – brings to mind Hopi prophecy of the End Times.
During this period, the Hopi say animals will begin appearing in mutated form, with strange, new beasts appearing, or the appearance of animals out of their habitat, or from earlier times. "The first prototypes can be very strange…especially as the animals will not have any alternative but to eat the chemically treated vegetation, and that which is wild can be contaminated from the radiation…"
This whole vein of thought was triggered by a couple of articles I came across last weekend. One was the de-evolving sticklefish in Lake Washington, near Seattle. These fish, having lost their armor in the middle of the last century, are now growing it back. The cause is clear, according to investigators. A $140 million cleanup of the lake has resulted in clearer water, leaving the tiny sticklefish at the mercy of predators like cutthroat trout. In defense, the sticklefish are re-growing armor.
Another was the emergence of python populations in Florida. These Burmese pythons, presumably bought from pet stores, have been released into the wild and are breeding. Some are as big as 16 feet long and 150 pounds – not a phenomenal size for a python, but certainly a danger to other household pets, like cats and dogs. Experts say the species could soon expand into other southern states like Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Knowing the amazing adaptability of animals, it’s not inconceivable the pythons could adapt to cold and move even farther north, say into the Carolinas.
And then there’s the crazy ants of Texas. Scientifically known as paratrenicha species near pubens, or pubens, these weird little insects arrived in Texas from the Caribbean in about 2002, and have reportedly spread to five Houston counties. Also known as Rasberry ants, after their archenemy Tom Rasberry, an exterminator, these prolific ants prefer to dine on other ants and, oddly enough, electricity. They have been known to target electrical and electronic devices, like the wiring inside computers. Past experiments indicate pubens could eventually become the dominant ant species in the territories it occupies – a mixed blessing that would remove both the legendary and ferocious fire ant (which have spread across the South, parts of the East Coast and California), and most of the 21st century’s gadgets.
We’ve all read the stories of the deformed frogs, which were first reported in Minnesota and the Great Lakes region. The deformities are now known to be the result of chemical pollutants. In Georgia, as early as 1995, reports of multi-legged frogs triggered an investigation and subsequent report in Science Magazine. In the same time period, deformed frogs were also being found across Connecticut. Frogs, or amphibians like salamanders, are environmental harbingers, warning that environments are severely polluted and out of control.
In 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported on bizarre deformities among Navajo sheep flocks and children. These were later determined to be the result of uranium mining blast holes that had filled with water, at which the sheep drank. Among the children, the disease earned the name, "Navajo neuropathy." Eventually, the Indian Health Service discovered that the area’s water – both in wells and in pools – has up to 139 picocuries per liter of uranium. The EPA limit is 20. Water in the pools also had high concentrations of radium 226, a radioactive isotope of uranium.
In 2002, after the cloning of animals became more commonplace, a position paper highlighted the dangers of cloning, saying that meat animals cloned to produce more mass per volume of food were producing difficult animal pregnancies and many more deformed animals than normal ones. The conclusion, by scientists, was that cloning may cause inherent, unpredictable and undetectable defects that could affect people who ate cloned meat. In addition, apparently normal cloned animals might have faulty gene regulation that could be passed along during consumption.
A case study in 2006 highlights animal deformities among the Inuit around Hudson’s Bay. Of thirty hunters surveyed from three communities during 2000-02, many stated that animal deformities were on the rise.
I don’t know if the world as we know it will end in 2012. I do know, from my reading, that the natural world is out of whack. Bees continue to disappear at alarming rates, biodiversity is down by a quarter since 1975, algal blooms in the Baltic Sea are at all-time highs, supposedly as a result of depleted fish stocks (though no one is sure this is the real cause), and the temperature of Lake Baikal in Russia is rising faster than atmospheric temperatures. Here in the Midwest, spring – which arrives precipitously about May 15 – is seriously delayed by continued cool temperatures, an alarming loss of migratory birds, and farmer’s observations that corn, soybean and wheat seeds are rotting in the ground.
The surprise may not be that the world ends in 2012, but that staggers on for decades, lurching toward a future in which we, its custodians, also become its last inhabitants.